Sheila Wray Gregoire's Blog, page 233

Sometimes We All Need a Glimpse of Heaven

Note: I had my column up from this week on the site, but I didn’t want to leave it here because it’s really more political in nature. So if you’re wondering where it’s gone, it’s just that I want to keep this blog about marriage and family, not politics, even if sometimes I write about politics.

Instead, I thought I’d reprint this column from several years ago. We’ve had a lot of deaths in our small town lately, many young people before their time, and it made me think of this again.

My mother always warned me that time goes faster as you age, but I never really believed her until this summer, when I started to notice how fast my own girls are growing up. Yet it is not only the younger generation that is growing older. Last week my husband’s oldest friend lost his mother, after a very long illness. Life suddenly seems rather short.

A few weeks ago my mother-in-law was listing various health complaints, when I commented, “growing old sure doesn’t sound that fun, but at least it’s better than the alternative.”

My dear mother-in-law then said something very wise. “But how do we know?” She asked. “I’m sure heaven is far better than what we have here.”

I believe it is, and yet often that belief doesn’t translate into my everyday life. Too often I live thinking only of the here and now. Yet if there is something beyond this life, shouldn’t we spend some time figuring out what that is?

Perhaps that is easier for children, who seem to have a better grasp on spiritual things. In just two short weeks I’ll remember the anniversary of my son’s death, fifteen years ago now. His memory is still so much a part of our family, and so my daughters have grown up without being shielded about death, as many children are. And yet it has not made them sad. I remember listening in on a conversation then 6-year-old Katie was having with a friend who was over to play. The friend had picked up a picture of my son and asked Katie about him. She replied, “That’s my big brother Christopher. I never got to meet him on earth, but when I get to heaven he’ll be my tour guide.” I’ve always liked that image.

It is in times of grief that these images are often sealed, either for good or for bad. We either reject the possibility of a deity and an afterlife, or we run desperately into God’s arms for comfort. I have chosen the latter, and I have found that even in tears, it brings peace.

It was that peace that radiated at the funeral last week, as my friend Bruce reflected on his mother’s Margaret’s life. The service was a beautiful testimony to her sense of humour and her faith. And Bruce ended with a story from December 23, 1986. He had called his mother to come and pick him up in Belleville, but she could not find the keys to the car. “Check your pockets,” she said. He did. And the keys rattled. She told him that perhaps it was time for him to learn a lesson and walk home.

With no other alternative, he started to trudge to his house northeast of the city. Over the years, Bruce admits, the story has become embellished. He admits now that he did not walk uphill the whole way. He was not barefoot. He did not have to climb over mountainous snow banks. And yet, on that day, he remembers his overwhelming thought was of his mother, safe and warm at home, while she left him to walk alone. And as he stood at his mother’s funeral, he had that same overwhelming feeling: she was safe and sound, at home, and he was left to walk alone.

When we lose someone we love, that overwhelming sense of loneliness is inevitable. I know those days will descend upon me again, whether it be soon or decades in the future. I hope, though, that those days come, I will be able to keep three images in mind: the God who welcomes me; Margaret, safe and happy at home; and my son, waiting to be my tour guide.

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What I’m Reading in July

It’s time for the July installment of “What I’m Reading”. I get so many requests to review books, and I can’t get through them all. But I wanted to give up and coming authors a chance to get in front of my audience. So once a month I’ll be letting you know about two or three books by new authors that I think may interest you. I try to choose books that focus on marriage, parenting, or Christian women’s themes. You can be featured in the future, too!

G.A.P.P.–God’s Appointed Position in Prayer

Cheryl White wants you to know that you have been appointed to pray for your husband–and you can be that prayer warrior, even if you don’t feel equipped! In G.A.P.P, God’s Appointed Position in Prayer, she helps you to stand in the gap!

And that’s what we’re called to do. In Ezekiel 22:30, God said:

I looked for someone among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found no one.

We can be the ones who stand in the gap for our husbands–and in fact, that’s exactly what Cheryl White says that we’re called to do. In this devotional book, that you can work through over 35 days, she lays out a very strong case–irrefutable even–about how only prayer changes things. And we are in a unique position to bring God’s favour, blessing, and even the rod of correction on our husbands’ lives. She says:

The husband God has given you, the man you see before you today in the natural, may not be walking in the calling and pur- pose that was established for him before the foundation of the earth. One of the assignments God has given you as this man’s wife is to pray over your husband and to speak those things that are not as though they were.

I love that! I know many of you reading this blog and writing to me are frustrated because your husbands aren’t what you want them to be. Cheryl’s book isn’t about praying so that your husband will become the man you want him to be. It’s about praying so that he becomes the man God made him to be. It helps get your focus onto God, and not you.

Why should we have to pray? Because, Cheryl says, we have a unique position in our husband’s life. We know him. We know what to pray for and how to pray. And we love him. And with that position comes an appointment.

As I was reading this, I felt very convicted that I have not been praying enough for my husband lately. I pray a ton for my kids, but not as much for him. It’s almost like, deep inside, I feel as if he should be able to handle things on his own. But that’s not true. My husband needs God, and one of the main tasks that I have, that no one else can do for me, is to lift him up in prayer.

The book first lays a strong case for why we should pray, and why we are in this unique calling, and then it proceeds with the devotionals. Each one is just a few pages, with an accompanying corporate prayer that Cheryl has written for all of us, and some Scriptures that go along with it. She deals with everything from restoring sanity to finding humility to bringing joy. And the focus of the devotional is to help us submit to God, so that we can then be effective as we pray for our husbands. She uses great Scripture stories throughout, from Zipporah who interceded for her husband Moses, to Ruth, Vashti, and Deborah. And she writes really beautifully.

One of the themes of the book is that all of this is a battle–it’s not easy to pray, it’s not easy to spend time in God’s Word when life gets busy. There are too many distractions. She says:

My prayer today is that husbands and wives crave and desire to be freely filled with God’s Word every day.

I really needed that today, because I’ve been so busy moving the blog to a different server, and dealing with all the little things that fell through the cracks. It’s been a busy few weeks. But if we don’t fill ourselves up, if we don’t really crave that time with God, we’ll be in trouble.

I like what she says here. It’s so true:

You know the old saying, “If Momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.” That just goes to say, “If Momma hasn’t prayed for herself in the best fashion and taken care of herself in the best fashion, then everyone else will not be prayed for in the best fashion.”

How often do I really carve out time for myself with God? How diligent am I with praying for myself to be effective in the positions that God has appointed me–as wife and mother, friend and confidante?

Cheryl invites us to pray bold prayers for the men we love, but she also is realistic that sometimes these men are not doing what is right. She helps us walk through forgiveness, disappointment, and even valleys in our marriages that are very bleak. Quoting Isaiah, where God says “for the Maker is your husband”, she says:

There may be seasons in your marriage in which God will have to be your husband. The answer to your problems is not to go and seek another man for the physical comforts that you may be longing for during your separation from your husband. No, the answer is to seek your Maker to be everything you need.

I totally agree, and that’s one of the themes of this blog. There will be periods when we do feel distant from our husbands–even times when we have to separate. Those are rare, but I know many on this blog deal with that. She helps us through with hope from Scripture to equip us to manage this dark period.

Overall, though, this is an optimistic book, a fighting book, a motivating book. She calls us to get off of our butts and actually DO something. We have the great God who wants to hear from us, and who wants us to pray. Will we? Check out G.A.P.P.!

The Great Cover-Up

Joy Trachsel believes that most of us are engaged in a huge cover up. God has given us wonderful treasure, but we have stuffed it down, either because of shame, or guilt, or fear, or just plain wrong priorities. And so she wants us to uncover the riches we do have, because that will change our lives.

She takes us on a journey of “uncovering”, helping us to find our authentic selves, the gifts and talents God gave us, our passion–even the truth of the gospel. But she also invites us to do the hard things, uncovering the sin, and the brokenness, and the shame. Because it’s only once we deal with all the things below the surface that the real “us”, the real person that God made to thrive for Him, can come through.

Joy got to this point because one day her life changed radically. She was the perfect Christian woman–the Church Lady, you might say. She had four kids, a husband, and a ministry at church. She was a substitute teacher. She made meals for the sick. She baked cookies. And then she had an interview for a job at a homeless shelter, and all the pretty little things in her life fell back. A new Joy was born.

So many of us are living lives on auto-pilot, trying to not rock the boat. What if there’s something bigger out there? What if there’s a passion to uncover? Joy says,

God showed me many things during those first weeks. He showed me what it means to be stretched for His purpose. He showed me what it looks like to be called and what it looks like to find your passion. More importantly, He showed me that being obedient is difficult and ugly and messy, but it’s not impossible.

Now Joy’s cause is a homeless shelter, but she didn’t write the book to get us all to march down to the nearest shelter and work there. That’s not the point. It’s not about what you do or where you do it, but about finding God’s passion inside you and releasing it. She asks,

I wonder what the world would look like if we all found our cause. What would it look like if we all took the scriptures seriously and lived out the Bible with relentless obedience?

That would be some world, wouldn’t it? And it’s easy to read that little quote and think, “oh, if only everybody would get passionate about Jesus!” But there’s no point bemoaning it, because it needs to start with us. We need to be the ones going through the great Uncovering.

The book would make a wonderful Bible study or group discussion for a women’s group. It has questions at the end of each chapter that you can wrestle through, and there’s lots of material to digest–and lots of challenges along the way. You’ll find God constantly prompting you, asking, “are you paying more attention to the people who are LIKE YOU in your circles of influence, or are you actively looking for those who are hurting, who need you?” Ouch. And it’s great to talk about these things with friends! But even if you use it as a devotional for yourself, you will be changed. Journal through it. Write down what God is saying to you. We all so desperately need to catch the fire of His passion again.

The simple truth is that many of lead Christian lives very similar to Joy’s before her great Uncovering. She shares her background in the book, and shesounds remarkably like most of my friends. Saved as a child. Grew up in the church. Went on a few missions trips, but life was small, and we kind of liked it that way. Yet when did God ever say “you are called to something small?” God asks us to step out, even if it doesn’t look “big” to anyone else on the outside. And He invites us into deeper fellowship–a fellowship which is never really safe. As Lewis said, Aslan is not a tame lion, you know.

And so Joy shares what an Uncovering will look like. She’s honest about her own struggles, with anxiety, and fear. And she beautifully shares the stories of the women she’s worked with, weaving them in. They’re mesmerizing. And as she shares how sin got so many of these women into trouble, she tells us straight out: you can’t do big things for God if you have sin in your life. You have to deal with that first. And even if our addictions aren’t as glamorous as those we see on TV, they still are real to God. And they hold us back. They need to be uncovered, and dealt with.

And once we’ve uncovered the sin, and the brokenness, we can find our passion. We can start to truly hear God in new ways, and move forward in a unique calling. It won’t look like Joy’s, or like mine, or like your sister’s or neighbor’s or friend’s. It’s yours. Don’t live your whole life and miss it because you were afraid of living a big life–of truly coming alive.

The book takes you through a step-by-step journey of uncovering your passions, gifts and callings by being honest with God, humble before Him, and thirsting for authenticity. She gives practical tips where they might be necessary–how do you discover your gifts? How do you figure out who in your circle needs help? But the book is primarily a spiritual one that will leave you energized and motivated, if you have the courage to take the leap. Changing things up is never easy, but I believe that for too long the church, especially in the West, has been too quiet. We want our lives to look pretty, not messy. We want to carve out our little slice of heaven. But this is not supposed to be our heaven! This is where we learn to hear God’s voice, learn to follow God, and then bring others with us. Many of us are missing out on the great joy that serving God wholeheartedly can bring.

If you are struggling with your purpose this summer, now’s a great time to read The Great Cover-Up and wrestle with God through what He is calling you for. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to feel really alive? God has that for you, and Joy invites you on a journey to uncover it.

 

Wifey Wednesday: 3 Things to Keep in Mind to Make Marriage Last

It’s Wednesday, the day when we always talk marriage! I introduce a topic, and then you all can link up your own marriage posts below. Because I’m taking the summer to work on some serious writing projects, I’m re-running some older posts that you probably didn’t see, because I published them before the blog got big. This is one of my favourites!

I was browsing around the internet lately and found the best synopsis of marriage advice I’ve seen in a long time.

Readers to this blog won’t find any of it surprising. I talk on these themes all the time. But it’s so pithy and wise, I have to reproduce it just as she said it over at Garden of Holiness:

3 Things to Keep in Mind

1. You picked him.

2. You can’t change him.

3. You didn’t marry a girl.

Aren’t those brilliant? Christine elaborates on them here.

You picked him: sometimes we women complain endlessly about our husbands, but let’s remember: this is the man I chose to marry. I had free will, and I decided this was the man for me. There were things about him I absolutely loved. When things are tough, remind yourself: I picked him, because… And remind yourself that the vow you made matters!

And you can’t change him. So stop trying. In fact, it’s better to pray that God will bless him and make him into the man God wants him to be–not the man you want him to be! As you start praying for him this way, God often changes our hearts. And then we can focus on changing ourselves.

And remember, he’s a guy! And there’s nothing wrong with that.

It reminds me of this great song by Brad Paisley, I’m Still a Guy. Enjoy!

Have anything pithy to add? Leave a thought in the comments! Or link up your own post in the linky below.

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Success Is Simply Using What God Has Given You

I’m spending the summer totally dedicated to writing full steam ahead! I have three big projects I’m working on, and I’m so excited to get them done. So periodically, instead of writing a new post, I’m going to repost something I wrote a few years ago, before this blog had much traffic. I really liked this post from 2010; see what you think.

Success is not getting a lot of stuff. Success is not being especially gifted at something. Success is simply allowing God to use what He has already given you.

(Click to Tweet this quote!)

A few days ago, I was talking to my daughter who was upset because she hadn’t lived up to her expectations in terms of marks in a certain subject. As teens, we tend to define ourselves and take pride in ourselves in the areas that we believe set us apart from others–-we’re prettier, we’re smarter, we’re more athletic, we’re very social. Whatever it is, we like to have something to point to and say, “that is who I am.”

Hopefully as adults we become more mature, and realize that our worth is not in our accomplishments. Realistically, though, that rarely happens. We still tend to judge ourselves by our successes. Have I landed a good job? Do I have a bunch of kids? Do I have a nice house? Are my kids in a good school? Am I in charge of a ministry at church? Do we make enough money? We judge ourselves by the standards that our society has set, which is completely counterproductive, let alone wrong.

Have you ever looked at the Israelites in the Old Testament and thought, “boy, were they ever stupid”? God tells them to do something, they do it, and everything goes right. Then they start doing the opposite, and things go badly. So they pray, God rescues them, and then the whole cycle repeats. And one of the things that God was so adamant about was that they not worship idols. They had to keep all those wooden idols out of their homes. And I often think, “you saw God part the Red Sea. Why would you go back to wooden idols?”

Yet I’m not sure they always realized what they were doing. The idols were all around them, in the cultures that they lived. And so they mixed worshiping idols with worshiping God.

We may not have wooden idols in our homes, but our culture has idols, too, and we are letting those idols infiltrate our homes.

We are letting those idols influence us, without realizing it, because it’s all around us.

And those idols come from our consumer culture, saying things like, “You deserve to be happy“. “You should be successful.” “You should be wealthy and have lots of stuff.” And we start to define our worth that way, even though we know that’s not how God sees us. We start to judge our ministries by numbers, rather than remembering that God sees the heart, and may be doing something important just for the sake of 1. We judge our families by our retirement savings, or our house size. And it’s one of the things that makes us work so hard, so that we can buy more stuff, rather than work less so that we can be with our families more.

A long time ago, when I was reading a bunch of entrepreneurial books in my twenties, I made a pledge to myself. I said, “by age 40, I will make $X a year.” I had a goal.

In two weeks I’m going to be 40, and I’m nowhere near that figure. And for a while, a few years ago, when I saw that I wasn’t going to make it, I felt badly, as if I had let down my dreams.

Yet since I made that pledge, I also decided to homeschool. I decided to write and speak as a ministry. I decided to spend a lot of time raising money for an orphanage in Kenya. It’s pretty hard to start a new business and make the kind of money I wanted to make while you’re doing all those other things.

And so I am approaching my birthday with peace. I haven’t lived up to my dreams because God has put new dreams in me. We must stop judging ourselves by the wrong things.

Your status doesn’t matter.

I know so many families where both parents work and make good money and they’re still always worried about money. I know other families who live in large homes that are gorgeous, but their kids aren’t really following Jesus because somehow or other, even though the parents believe, they stopped making their children’s faith a priority, and their jobs and sports became the priority.

Success, you see, is not in what we have. It’s not in how much money we make. As I said at the opening, success is letting God use what He has already given you. It’s taking the gifts and the things that God has given you, and leaving them open for Him. It’s saying, “my time today is yours, Lord. Show me how I should use it.” It’s saying, “I want to raise these kids for you, Lord, so show me how to be a good mother.” It’s not being worried about whether there is enough money to give them the best; it’s being able to put your kids as one of your main priorities (behind your marriage) in terms of love and attention and time. That’s what leads to real success.

I am often saddened when I look at the women in the church that I know who are tired. They’re running around, trying to reach some goal that God never set for them, so that they can have what they’re supposed to have in this culture. We buy into our culture’s consumerism and we don’t even see it. But the size of your wardrobe isn’t important. The size of your house isn’t important. It’s whether you’re taking the time to talk to God, to listen to God, and to let Him use what He has given you.

As for Me and My House – Vinyl Wall Art

from: DaySpring Cards Inc

Everything you have is His.

It doesn’t belong to you. It comes from Him. If we honestly understood that, we’d worry less about money. We’d have less fear about our children. We’d stop trying to compulsively plan everything and we’d start praying more. We’d stop hoarding our time and hoarding our home and we’d have more people in for dinner, or more people in just to talk.

Those who may not have beautiful homes, and may not have huge incomes, but who love people and love their kids are very successful. Mother Theresa was successful, because she simply said, “Here I am, Lord. Use me.” And God did. She had no money, but God multiplied her ministry.

If you’re feeling aimless today, and tired, why not stop, take a deep breath, pull up a cup of hot chocolate, and just talk to God about your life? Ask Him to show you what He has already given you. Ask Him to help you make fewer “success” goals and more prayers. Ask Him to help you see the immense worth that you are to Him, and that your children are to Him, and that your husband is to Him. You are His success story. And you will make that story even better if you keep focused on sharing what God has already given you–in terms of grace, and love, and time, and even money–rather than on accumulating even more for yourself.

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Reader Question: My Husband Doesn’t Spend Any Time with Me

Every Monday I like to answer a Reader Question. I give some quick thoughts, and then you all can chime in, too, in the comments section.

I recently received an email that said this:

My husband likes to hang out with “the guys” after work, and he’s rarely home. I’m lonely. Is that normal?

That’s tough, isn’t it? A lot of couples get into these situations where, once they’re married, they rarely spend any time together anymore.

So let me give a few quick thoughts.

First, it is absolutely fine for men to hang out with friends.

They do need male bonding. That being said, everything should be in balance, and if he’s consistently with his friends, and he’s never with you, that’s not healthy for your relationship.

However, nagging rarely helps anything. If you complain about it, then he will feel like he’s being attacked, or that you’re pressuring him, and that could cause him to withdraw further.

You still need a friendship

Let’s just think about the dynamics of your relationship. Often when people marry, they marry because they love each other and they want to be together. But they don’t necessarily have a really good friendship. They don’t necessarily have things that they enjoy doing together (other than sex). So, once you’re married, it’s easy to start to drift apart because you didn’t have regular things that you did together.

Guys, when they don’t have something specific planned, will then often say, “I’ll hang out with the guys, because nothing else is on at home tonight.”

So what I would recommend is that you sit down with your husband and ask what sorts of things he enjoys doing that you can do with him. Does he like to fish? Then start fishing with him (even if you don’t like to fish!). Does he like taking bike rides? Then start riding bikes together. Does he like watching sporting events? Then try going to some. Or take up a new hobby, like tennis together.

Find something that you can do, rather than just hang out at home.

If you have something specific planned, he’s more likely to come home. And if it’s something that he enjoys, all the better! Find ways to laugh together, instead of nagging him to just be home. Many men don’t want to “just be home”. They need a reason, like something that they are going to do together. Of course, that’s tricky if you have little kids, but see if you can find things to do as a family, or swap baby-sitting with another couple, so you can have some one-on-one time.

Also remember that men tend to communicate side by side, rather than face to face.

They like talking while they’re doing something. They don’t tend to like just sitting around and talking face to face, the way we women do. So the more you can find things to do, the more you’ll likely communicate. And if you start laughing and finding things to do together, he’ll probably want to be with you more.

So rather than tell him that you want him home more, or that you want him to do something that you want to do, try to find things that he enjoys doing that you can do with him, even if you have to stetch yourself or go outside of your comfort zone. The best thing that you can do for your relationship is just to learn to be friends again, so try that out!

Want some specific things to do together? Here’s a post of 2-player games you can play with your spouse. But I’d love to hear what you do together with your husband. What are you all doing to revive your friendship this summer? Let’s leave some ideas in the comments of things that you can do to spend time together!

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Standard of Living vs. Quality of Life

Every Friday my syndicated column appears in a bunch of newspapers in southeastern Ontario and Saskatchewan. This week let’s talk about organization and about the things we value.

Summer may be a glorious season to sit and relax and soak up some sun, but I can only relax in small doses. To me, summer screams, “organize your house!”. Summer offers me a much-coveted stretch of time to finally accomplish some major housecleaning tasks. My children do not understand why a guest room which has been used as a storage room for the last two and a half years is now assigned the This Must Be Defeated Or the World Will Come to An End status, but that’s just how I am in summertime. I figure sun covers over a multitude of obsessive behaviours.

And so it is that for the last week my girls and I have rooted through boxes and jewelry racks and shoe racks and even the laundry room, shooing dust out of places I didn’t think it could accumulate, and relegating many long forgotten treasures to the charity pile.

As I gaze at this ever-expanding pile by my door, it occurs to me that each item there represents not just money that I once parted with, but time. We perhaps do ourselves a disservice when we value things only in terms of money. Sure that restaurant dinner out for four was only $65, but if you consider it by amount of time spent working, it takes on new significance. If you earn $13 an hour after taxes, that dinner out represented five hours of your life. Was it worth five hours?

When my oldest daughter started working full-time last semester she began to count things in terms of hours. That new hair straightener? Four hours. That’s worth it. That new dress? Not so much.

Little purchases can add up, but it’s perhaps the bigger choices of how we will spend our time and our money that set the tone for our lives. Perhaps we spend too much time worrying about our standard of living and not enough time worrying about our quality of life. We tend to measure things in terms of monetary value–we aim to earn the most income, have the nicest home, and accumulate more gadgets.

Yet when we make those choices, we’re simultaneously choosing to work harder and to be away from home more. Quite often standard of living and quality of life are trade-offs. When our children were small, for instance, my husband and I chose for me to stay home, even though it meant we rented an apartment, didn’t own a car, and bought everything second hand. We didn’t have a high standard of living. We did have a high quality of life.

Life is ultimately a choice–a choice of what we will value, and what we will sacrifice. If we choose to spend more time with our children, that may mean a much smaller home. If we choose to work for more vacations, a bigger home, or a summer cottage, it may mean less time to pursue hobbies, or simply to relax.

My fear is that too many of us get caught on this conveyor belt and we don’t realize we can make a choice to get off. There is no law saying that we have to keep accumulating stuff, keep earning more money, or keep buying the latest gadgets. We are allowed to choose what we will value.

Personally, I really value the chance summer offers to reorganize my life and drive my children crazy. It is a blessing. I just hope that this season reminds me that what I really want in life is more time–time with family and friends, time to knit; time to serve. And I can do that without as much stuff.

You can find Sheila cleaning house at www.Facebook.com/sheila.gregoire.books.

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Your Child’s Expert

I’m taking a little hiatus from blogging this summer while I work on some major writing projects. I’m still checking in in the comments section, but I thought I’d rerun some columns from a few years ago, before this blog got big, that you likely never read. Here’s one I’m quite passionate about that I wrote quite a few summers ago.

I spent a week this summer reminding myself why I hated being a teenager. I was working as office manager at a camp while my kids were campers. They could see me at mealtimes so they didn’t get too homesick, but on the whole they were on their own. In the meantime, I listened to counselors fretting about boyfriends or girlfriends, about conflicts between friends, and about who is in what clique.

That’s not all I heard. Just like me, a nurse also came up to work while her three kids attended camp, including one very shy 8-year-old boy. She was supposed to be working at his camp, but was sent instead to the teenage one on the other side of the lake. Her son didn’t fare very well in her absence. The 19-year-old section head and 18-year-old counselor were sure they knew why. “In our experience,” they said, “these kids do much better if the parents are completely offsite.”

Now these teenagers were lovely people and experienced campers, having spent eight weeks at camp for each of the last three years. But that mom was an expert, too. She could have said, “I know you’ve spent 168 days at camp, but I have 3,000 days of experience with this particular boy, and he would have been fine had I worked here.” It was not to be. She took their criticism lying down.

This incident stayed with me, I think, because it’s not an anomaly. Everywhere we turn, someone else is telling us how to raise our kids (including me!). Even the spanking debate which I sparked a while ago (why do I do these things?) is symptomatic of this need for others to tell us, despite divided research data, how to parent our children.

One of my friends recently had an unfortunate run-in with a teacher, who was upset that this mom helped her fourth grade daughter to understand math. “She has to learn it the way we teach it, not the way you explain it,” the teacher stressed, failing to see the irony that if the teacher had actually taught the child, she wouldn’t have needed her mother’s help in the first place. The mother said little. I think a simple, “my child, my house, my time,” would have sufficed, followed by, in a Shrek accent, “bye-bye. See you later.” But my friend was more polite.

Instead of feeling upset when someone criticizes what we do with our kids, we tend to feel intimidated. When Rebecca took swimming lessons at the age of 4, the swimming instructor dunked her. I knew this wouldn’t work, but I didn’t speak up, and to this day I wonder why I was so cowed by a 17-year-old. It took me two years to undo the damage, during which my daughter would scream if I mentioned lessons. I took her swimming for fun, and she slowly began to like the water again. She swims like a fish now! (update: nine years after writing this column, Rebecca is a lifeguard who teaches swimming. And she never forces kids underwater). Yet she wasn’t like most kids when it comes to learning to swim. She’s easily spooked, and I should have stepped in earlier.

We live in an expert-driven society. No longer does common sense or life experience qualify you for anything. Yet though experts may know general knowledge, such as what happens with most children, you are the only one who knows the specifics, or what happens with your child.

I say this knowing what it is like to be on the other side. Doctors often deal with parents who refuse to believe that nothing is wrong with their child. We could all benefit from two or three honest and wise friends who could act as our personal “reality checks”, telling us when we, or our kids, are out of line. But I still can’t help feeling that erring on the side of too much involvement is better than erring on the side of too little. Studies show consistently that kids need involved parents. Good teachers and principals know this and welcome it; insecure ones don’t.

Maybe you don’t have much education. Maybe you haven’t read all the parenting books, and maybe you’ve even made mistakes. But your child will likely never have a better advocate than you. Next time somebody starts telling me that I should leave my children alone or butt out, I will leave. But my children come with me. Bye bye. See you later.

Wifey Wednesday: 25 Quick Ways to Show Your Husband Love

It’s Wednesday, the day when we always talk marriage! I introduce a topic, and then you all can chime in in the comments section or link up your own marriage post below.

When our son was terminally ill, a counselor we were seeing suggested that we each make a list of 20 things that the other person could do for us that would make us feel loved and special, just to keep our marriage close during a really difficult time.

In every marriage you need to find non-sexual ways of showing your spouse that you’re thinking about them and you care about them. Here were the rules:

1. The things couldn’t be expensive

2. They couldn’t take more than 5 minutes.

3. They had to have nothing to do with sex.

We wrote up the lists together, exchanged them, and then committed to doing roughly two things on that list each day. I can’t tell you what a difference it made in our marriage! If your husband’s willing to do this, I recommend it wholeheartedly! But if he’s not, you can still make your own list of things to do for him. Here are some to get you started:

Praise him in front of the kids.
Greet him at the door when he gets home–drop whatever you’re doing and go kiss him!
Make him a coffee to take with him in the morning.
Give  him a backrub.
Brag about him to your friends when he can hear.
Tell him one thing you admire about him in relation to his work–and try to make it a different thing every time you say it!
Rub your fingers through his hair as you’re watching a movie.
Lay out his clothes for him the night before.
Make an appointment to get an oil change for the car.
Sort the mail so he doesn’t have to.
Put on lipstick and fix your hair 15 minutes before he’s expected home from work (or right before you arrive home from work!).
Text him and tell him specifically what you love doing with him.
Bring him a glass of water if he’s working out in the heat.
Bring him a drink when he’s working at his desk.
Ask him what he’d like for dinner–let him choose the menu at least once a week.
Wear something you know he loves.
Going out to pick up an ice cream/treat with the kids? Bring him one, too–even if you went out during the day when he was at work. Save it for him, with a note, “We were thinking of you!”
Rub him dry when he gets out of the shower–and put some “manly” moisturizer cream on him, or some talcum powder. Towel dry hair for him, and tell him you just love how he smells. Granted, this one may be a little sexual.
Read a bit of a book/funny story/newspaper to him while he takes a bath.
Pray for him while you’re lying in bed–out loud. Reach out, put your arm on his, and say a sentence-or-two prayer.
Walking by him? Reach out and touch him for a second!
Rub his feet while you’re watching TV. (You can even get a cloth and wash his feet and put some cream on them, too).
Ask him his advice on something–and then follow it (without challenging him!)
Ask him to explain something about a hobby to you.
Don’t just tell him you love him–tell him WHY you love him.

Start doing two or three of these things everyday, and you’ll be changing the dynamic in your marriage. You’ll be showering him with random acts of kindness, and that makes a difference. It says “I’m thinking about you.”

But one big caveat: we tend to experience love differently. As Gary Chapman said, there are five love languages: Physical Touch, Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Acts of Service, and Gifts. Know your husband’s love language, because it makes a difference! We tend to want to express love in the same way that we experience it, but sometimes this can backfire.

I love backrubs. I really do. There’s nothing you can do to make me swoon more than rubbing my back, mostly because I have such horrendous posture. But my husband, when he’s thinking, likes to be left alone. So if I go over and rub his back, I’m annoying him. He loves it when he’s just relaxing; he doesn’t like it when he’s thinking. It’s just a little thing, but we can think we’re showing someone love when really we’re not. So we have to figure out how our spouse interprets kindness.

That’s why this exercise works best if you EACH make up your own list, and then exchange lists. Use my list of 25 things as a starting point, but remember: he may not appreciate all of these! Maybe he’d rather choose his own clothes. Maybe he’d rather that you left him alone while he’s showering. So don’t try these things and then get upset if he doesn’t react well. The point of the exercise isn’t to do as many things as possible for him; it’s to do the things that actually speak his love language.

So ask him if he’s willing to sit down and write lists with you. Then exchange lists, and you’ll be amazed at what happens in your marriage!

Want a more sexual way to show your husband love? Don’t forget about my 31 Days to Great Sex! He’ll love it.

Now, what advice do you have for us today? Link up your own marriage post in the linky below, or tell me in the comments other ways that perhaps I’ve forgotten of quick things to do to show your husband love!

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I’m BA-A-A-CK!

Hi everybody!

Sorry for the minor outage yesterday and today. We migrated the blog over to a new larger server and 15 of the posts decided not to come. A few of them are still missing, but I’ll re-upload them today.

You won’t likely notice anything new with the blog, except perhaps a few glitches I’m still ironing out. It wasn’t a redesign; just a migration. But I’m glad to be back!

Here’s something inspirational from the files for you:

Reader Question: When You’re the One Who Needs Forgiveness

As of Monday my blog will be down for a day or two while I switch over to a new server. So if you visit here, and you get an error message, don’t worry! I’ll be back soon!

But because of that I thought I’d run my Reader Question, which I normally post on Mondays, today. Every Monday I like to post a Reader Question and try to take a stab at answering it. Then I invite you all to chime in in the comments section, too!

Today’s question is one I often hear different variations of. Here’s one:

My marriage is down the drain and mostly it is my fault. My excessive spending and taking loans (which have now amounted to [a significant debt]) without consulting my husband has created a big rift between us that seems unrepairable due to the fact he doesn’t think I will changed.

I must admit that the first time he found out, he tried to forgive, but I did It again and this time he has had it. I no it is going to take time to pay all this debt off but I don’t want to loose my family (we have a 3yr old girl) and my husband because of my selfish actions.

I feel like I am getting depressed by the unhappy environment because we barely talk only when necessary. How do I regain his trust in me and our marriage? This was surely not what I had envisioned for my marriage.

Here’s another one:

Last year my husband was traveling a lot for business and we were having some various marriage problems at the same time. I developed feelings for a neighbor, and we ended up having an affair. I broke it off after a few weeks, but my husband knows, and he’s having a hard time forgiving me. He’s not leaving me because of the kids, but he doesn’t talk to me unless he needs to. I feel so stupid and mad at myself and ashamed for what I did, but no amount of apologizing seems to do any good. What else can I try?

Both these questions have the same root: a wife has done something really horrible and broken her husband’s trust. Now how can that be rebuilt?

Here are a few thoughts:

1. Apologies are Best Expressed in Actions, Not in Words

Saying “I’m sorry” is absolutely necessary when you’ve messed up. But that’s only the beginning.

What your spouse really wants to know is that you are committed to never having this happen again.

So what can you do to show your spouse that you are changing? In the case of an affair, can you suggest moving or switching jobs if it will take you away from the guy? Can you ask your husband if he will share email accounts or Facebook accounts with you so that he never has to worry about what you’re doing? Can you give him your cell phone and give it up for a while?

In the case of money, can you cut up your credit cards and hand them over? Can you download a spending app on your cell phone that you can share with him to show him where the money is going? Can you consult a debt specialist about the best way to pay off the debt, and then make a plan and share it with your husband, with specific goals that you can show him that you have met? Can you figure out how you can take on the responsibility to pay off the debt, and not leave it all to him? Can you get a part-time job? Start cooking more efficiently and spending less on groceries? Have a massive yard sale?

In other words, putting yourself in a situation where you are accountable and transparent to him, and where he can see that you are serious, will often go much further than a simple apology.

2. Give Him Time to Be Angry

Your husband is really hurt. His trust is broken. You, on the other hand, are desperate to know that your marriage is going to be repaired. And it’s very hard to stand in that limbo time, when your husband is trying to work through his feelings. You’ve already worked through yours; you’re sorry, and you want things back to normal again. You want to put this behind you.

But you need to give him time to grieve. That is his right, and he needs to see that you have changed. That takes time.

In this period of limbo, throw yourself on God. Spend more time on prayer. Read your Bible a lot. Join a women’s Bible study. Find some people who can help support you and who you can talk to while your husband is working through his issues. That way you don’t have to crowd your husband and put pressure on him.

3. Truly Repent

Remember that not only have you sinned against your husband; you’ve also sinned against God. Work through your repentance with God. Read Psalm 51 on a daily basis for a time, and pray through it. Develop some true humility. That will help you work this through.

And as you’re doing that, you’ll be able to accept God’s forgiveness, which is very freeing. No, perhaps your husband hasn’t let it go yet. But you can feel restored by God, and He can help you move forward with that new humility and that new gentleness that comes from recognizing that you are fallible.

4. Do Random Nice Things

It’s tempting when he stops talking to you or when he reacts in anger to act similarly in return. Don’t. Simply be nice. I don’t mean be luvey-duvey; sending him love notes in his lunch is not appropriate, as much as you may want to do this. You can’t force the romance back. But you can get up early and make his coffee before he leaves for work, without demanding a thank you. You can take the car in for an oil change without him having to prompt you. You can buy his mom a birthday card so he doesn’t have to, and leave it for him to sign. You can just simply BE NICE.

You don’t have to announce that you’ve done these things–”did you like me getting coffee for you this morning?”. You can just do them. And gradually, as you treat him well, with respect, you may notice a thawing.

5. Work on Your Friendship

Conversation often returns before the real expressions of love, and that’s to be expected. You only start rebuilding trust one level at a time. Once you are conversing again, and you’re able to be in the same room again, start doing things as friends that don’t require a screen. Get out of the house this summer and go on hikes, or bike rides. Play golf. Do a puzzle. Anything! Just find things that you can do together that are low stress that aren’t necessarily romantic. That way you’re not forcing a relationship; you’re forging a new one.

6. Allow Room for Anger

You may think that several months have gone by, and things are progressing, so he shouldn’t be angry anymore. But it’s often just as you are starting to talk that his anger starts really surfacing. Now he may have a lot of questions–what did you do with that guy? Tell me in detail! What were you thinking when you spent all that money? etc. etc.

When he starts demanding answers, don’t say, “I’ve said I’m sorry! What else can I say? You seem to want to punish me indefinitely!” That may be natural, but he does need time to get his questions out. I’d advise answering them as honestly and succinctly (you don’t need to go into a lot of detail) as you can.

Also, avoid the impulse to defend yourself. “I wouldn’t have had the affair if you had shown some interest in me!” Or “If you hadn’t spent so much time on video games maybe I wouldn’t have felt so lonely!” Those are real issues, and do need to be dealt with. But leave them for another time, or bring them up with a counselor. For now, let him express his anger. Once you have talked about his issues, you can say, “I don’t ever want to be tempted in this way again. Can we talk about how to build our relationship so that neither of us ever strays?” Then you can mention some of your issues–video games, for instance. But leave this until after he has had a chance to deal with his anger.

6. See a Counselor

Finally, when major trust has been broken it’s often a good idea to sit down with a third party and talk things through, especially if your husband has a lot of questions, and you providing answers doesn’t seem to be satisfying him. Sometimes allowing your husband to ask you these questions with a third party present can help you figure out how much to share, and can help put limits on how many questions he could/should ask.

7. Decide What to Tell the Children

I’m a big advocate in not keeping secrets. Children pick up on things anyway, and when they know there is tension in the house, but they don’t know why, they tend to assume that they are the cause of it. Telling your children what you did, at an age appropriate level, is likely a good idea. If you had an affair, for instance, you could tell a young child that Mommy did something that hurt Daddy. That way you’re letting the child know that you are the cause of the tension. If they’re teens, it’s likely a good idea just to be honest. They’ll find out one day anyway. Before you tell the kids anything, of course, talk to your husband about it. Say, “this is what I’d like to tell the children.” But my advice is always to be honest.

During the period of time when your husband is distant from you, it’s tempting to get your emotional needs met from the kids. You’re heartbroken, so you pull them closer. Don’t do this. It’s not emotionally healthy for them. If you have emotional needs, seek out a friend, not your kids.

If your husband sees you accepting responsibility in front of the kids, and not trying to sugar coat things, that will also go further in showing him that you are serious about your apology.

If you’ve messed up your marriage, the road back can be very long. But so many marriages have found themselves even stronger several years down the road because they have worked through these issues, and they’ve learned better communication techniques and put in place more boundaries. So don’t despair!

And ladies, if any of you have ever walked through something similar, and you now find your marriage stronger, can you leave a comment? That will reassure so many of my readers. And if you have any other thoughts, please leave them in the comments, too!

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Related posts:

Reader Question of the Week: Can You Get Over Adultery?
Reader Question of the Week: Really Listening
Reader Question of the Week: Clean Standards